An installation of new kinetic sculpture by San Francisco artist Larnie Fox exploring his lifelong fascination with images of the machinery of war. War Toys reflects the artist’s boyhood interest in things that fly, shoot, burn, explode or make noise, channeled now through his art away from war and toward a poetic reverie about science, space exploration and robotics. War Toys also evokes a common sense of ambiguity felt by those who are simultaneously horrified by war and at the same time amazed by the technology we have amassed to perpetrate mass destruction.www.infoflow.com/larnie

An exhibition of black and white and color photographs by acclaimed San Francisco artist Charles Gatewood, who has documented America's alternative culture for the past forty years. This exhibition is in conjunction with the opening of Forbidden Photographs, a feature film by Bill Macdonald about Gatewood's life and work, which opens at the Roxie Theatre the same evening and runs through May 15th.

Charles Gatewood will be present at the opening reception to sign copies of his many books, including his latest, MESSY GIRLS, just published by Goliath Books.

May 21st will be a dual evening. Leslie Scalapino will read from her new book from Wesleyan University Press, which is her autobiography with a poem, Zither & Autobiography. This will be followed by readings, with San Francisco contributors, from O Books’ Enough, edited by Rick London and Leslie Scalapino. Enough is an anthology of poetry and writings against war that includes fifty-eight poets whose contributions are interactive with the current time. In Enough, U.S., British, Palestinian, Iraqi, and Israeli poets speak back and forth to each other through the medium of their art.

The LAB, a project of the art re grup, Inc., is supported in part by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation; The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, LEF Foundation; National Endowment for the Arts; The Creative Work Fund, California Arts Council, a state agency; the San Francisco Publicity and Advertising Fund's Hotel Tax/Grants for the Arts program; Zellerbach Family Fund; National Trust for Historic Preservation; The British Council; The Arts Council of England; San Francisco Mayor's Office of Community Development; and members and volunteers of The LAB. The ideas expressed in this site are not necessarily those of our funders.

For more information on upcoming events in the Bay area visit Grants for the Arts' new website at http://www.sfarts.org